Cited by

Reid v. N.H. Attorney Gen., 169 N.H. 509, 527 (2016); Union Leader Corp. v. Town of Salem, 173 N.H. 345, 355 (2020).

The trial court found, and the plaintiff acknowledges, that “persons interviewed during police investigations do possess a privacy interest,” and that the “trial court should consider whether disclosing information such as police witness interviews might subject an interviewee to embarrassment or reputational harm.” See, e.g., Reid v. N.H. Attorney Gen., 169 N.H. 509, 529-31 (2016) (explaining that witnesses in police investigations can have privacy interests in personally identifying and substa

“Even information imbued with a legitimate privacy interest is subject to disclosure if, on balance, that interest 4 is outweighed by the public’s cognizable interest in disclosure.” Reid v. N.H. Att’y Gen., 169 N.H. 509, 531 (2016).

determine whether disclosure of the requested records would constitute an invasion of privacy under RSA 91-A:5, IV, and concluded that the Division “failed to carry its heavy burden to shift the balance in favor of nondisclosure with respect to the records at issue.” See Union Leader Corp. v. Town of Salem, 173 N.H. 345, 355 (2020) (describing the three-step analysis); Reid v. N.H. Attorney Gen., 169 N.H. 509, 527-29 (2016) (explaining the scope of the protected privacy interests and the proper

The public has a substantial interest in information about what its government is up to, see Lamy, 152 N.H. at 111, as well as in knowing whether a government investigation is comprehensive and accurate, see Reid v. N.H. Attorney Gen., 169 N.H. 509, 532 (2016).

Therefore, when a public entity seeks to avoid disclosure of material under the Right-to-Know Law, that entity bears a heavy burden to shift the balance toward nondisclosure.

Union Leader Corp.,173 N.H. at 353-57 (overruling Union Leader Corp. v. Fenniman, 136 N.H. 624, 627 (1993), to the extent that it applied a per se rule, rather than a balancing test, precluding the disclosure of records falling within the exemption for “internal personnel practices”); Reid v. N.H. Attorney Gen., 169 N.H. 509, 527-28 (2016).

In further support of its argument, the Division relies on Clay v. City of Dover, 169 N.H. 681 (2017), and Reid v. New Hampshire Attorney General, 169 N.H. 509 (2016).

Reid v. N.H. Attorney Gen., 169 N.H. 509, 522 (2016) (declining to reconsider prior precedent when neither party had asked us to do so).

Reid v. N.H. Attorney Gen., 169 N.H. 509, 528 (2016) (discussing the exemption under the Right-to-Know Law for “personnel.

4 In Reid v. New Hampshire Attorney General, 169 N.H. 509 (2016), we criticized Fenniman, but did not decide whether to overrule it because we were not asked to do so.

Our interpretation of the “internal personnel practices” exemption in Fenniman departed from our customary Right-to-Know Law jurisprudence in two significant ways.

Reid v. N.H. Attorney Gen., 169 N.H. 509, 522 (2016) (explaining that the adjectives in a statute modify the words that follow them, and “thereby circumscrib[e] the provision’s scope”).

“When interpreting a statute, we first look to the plain meaning of the words used and will consider legislative history only if the statutory language is ambiguous.” Reid v. N.H. Attorney Gen., 169 N.H. 509, 522 (2016) (quotation omitted).